As Basil Bunting wrote about Ezra Pound's Cantos, "There are the Alps... you will have to go a long way round if you want to avoid them." Led Zeppelin's work is the central fact of 1970s rock & roll; in it's loving homage to and shameless piracy from the blues, its glorious and wretched excess, its transformation of hippie and folk-rock graces into a foundation-shaking kaboom, and its offhanded myth-making, the band turned everything caught in it's wake into a reaction to it--or against it. The three non-album tracks the box includes are grace notes rather than lost jewels, but the point of the set is to be a Rosetta stone of album rock, the stairway to a gaudy paradise that they constructed.

Featuring extensive interviews with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham, this is a comprehensive and hard-hitting look at the rise of Led Zeppelin, proclaimed by Rolling Stone as the greatest group of the 1970s. A track-by-track analysis of every Zeppelin recording is provided along with intimate and rare photographs, as well as interviews with those close to the band, such as their publicist, BP Fallon, and their bodyguard. Deluxe DVDs provide rare films and recordings of the band on film and on stage, making this a must-have for all true Zeppelin fans.

For Led Zeppelin fanatics, this 1976 feature The Song Remains the Same is a treasure of searing live performances, particularly welcome in light of the sad scarcity of such visual material from the band's great decade. Despite the group's road weariness after a long tour, their final, three-night stand at Madison Square Garden in 1973 was full of the old power. Performances of "No Quarter," "Whole Lotta Love," "Black Dog," "Dazed and Confused," and "Stairway to Heaven" underscore Zep's charisma. Trouble is, you don't get an unbroken performance here. Viewers have to wade through a mishmash of documentary insight into the lives of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, as well as fantasy sequences supposedly inspired by the thoughts and fantasies of the band's individual members. It's mostly garish and silly, but there are some nice elements, especially insights into the late Bonham's life. The DVD doesn't offer much in the way of add-ons (a theatrical trailer is about it), but there is also enhanced viewing for 16 x 9 televisions. --Tom Keogh